Maps

With just two weeks to go until Clash Of The TITANS, our 1v1 swiss tournament with the largest prize pool yet, we’re happy to unveil the final maps drawn from some of the finest available for the game. We’ve got old favourites and a few new ones to test your skills, so use the time well to prepare because your opponents will.

Round 1 – Roc

Featuring two late asteroid spawns, it primarily plays out on the main planet with orbital being a rare feature. An initially defensible looking base proves to be hard to hold, with multiple entrances providing ample opportunity for raids. Large craters between the bases mean frontal assaults can quickly turn to the defenders advantage.

Round 2 – Diadem

A map by superouman seen in the Big Bang Finals, it featured heavily in the finals and may be remembered for one particularly epic game.

Don’t be deceived by its simple two path appearance, there’s a lot of opportunity for trickery. Water in the lakes can be grabbed by air, or denied by torpedo launchers. High ground on either sides of your base must be guarded jealously else you will lose access to sizable amounts of metal not only on the ledges, but also on the ground around them with Grenadiers being free to rain death down on you.

If you don’t know this map like the back of your hand then you need to ladder more as it has been a feature of the pool since the introduction of custom terrain. Featuring heavy tank play, the rush to grab the easily defensible six metal to one side has died down a little with the Drifter providing an easy way to raid this space. While an all vehicle play with limited air support has been a mainstay on Forge, some players have been experimenting with early Booms to take advantage of this.

Round 4 – Aquarius

This map by superouman represents the first of our new entries, not seen before in tournament play.

I’m excited to see how this one plays out. There’s a great concentration of metal on a plateau between the two bases, along with smaller amounts spread out across several platforms. The sea stretches between both bases, and a strong position here also offers firing opportunities direct onto the enemy’s stronghold.

Round 5 – Sauron

Another map by superouman also not seen in tournament play before.

As with many of his maps it has two primary routes, one which leads through a central arena with strong metal concentrations to the side. Meanwhile the back route has an easily defensible choke, but the metal sits beyond it and has two paths curving either way around a massive repository of metal accessible only by air.

Rather like with the Prof X system, I think the outcome of the battle for the air accessible metal will also determine the outcome of the game.

Round 6 – The Island

A map by Alpha2546 which features two asteroids accessible from the start of the game.

Most of the metal is on the land between the bases, but it’s spread out in a forest area. With terrain preventing the easy traversal of land troops from one side to the other, expect to see plenty of air raids. While the sea doesn’t have as much, it offers easy rear access to the base. Plenty of opportunities for Drifters, or just plain old coastal bombardments.

The asteroids have very little in the way of metal and I don’t expect them to feature in most games, but they do offer an opportunity to give yourself a slight economic edge should the game stalemate, and a way to end the tournament in glorious fashion.

Tiebreaker – Systeem X

In case of a tie we have this final system from [RLM]Mot9001, updated by PAG_Elodea for the SuperCommander tournament series.

This is a very old school map. Very little terrain, and a spread out metal layout which will favour aggressive bot or air play. This kind of system sees a lot of back and forth and can either end very quickly, or lead to a protracted battle with both sides probing the other for weaknesses. Anyone who played Planetary Annihilation back in beta will feel very at home here.

It’s only a week until the Big Bang Qualifiers, the first half of the Big Bang tournament which sees 64 players competing for a prize pool of $300. Sign-ups are still open, so grab a place while you still can.

The following week sees the eight victors competing in the Big Bang Finals. The maps for this stage have now been chosen and we’re pretty excited about the selection. It represents some of the best work the community has created and even includes one from Uber. We’ve got small maps, we’ve got large maps, we’ve got multi planet, we’ve got high metal and we’ve got low metal.

So while I was on holiday it seems the elves at Uber have been busy little boys and girls. First let’s catch-up on the latest stable release, with the introduction of ChronoResume (resume anywhere), along with a huge host of AI updates.

Praise, complaints, thoughts and bug reports should be left in the official thread.

Hotfix Build 82369

Fix for largest cause of “Lost connection to server” issues. We will continue monitoring the issue and make more fixes where needed. Sorry for the issue, and thanks for your patience!

Release Build 82293

ChronoResume

Added Resume Anywhere

To use:

Load or start a game or replay

Open Chronocam

Rewind back to where you want to go. (You have to rewind at least 2 seconds)

Select the Play From Here (Beta) button and Yes when asked “Rewind history and restart battle?”

Wait for simulation to load​

Please note, replays prior to the introduction of ChronoResume do no support this feature.

Balance

AA missile tiny AOE radius

Naval firing arc adjustments

Units are now able to reclaim wreckage and trees while patrolling

Reclaim will not occur if metal storage is full

Fighter (Hummingbird)

Splash Damage set to 20

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Removed death weapon

Bomber (Bumblebee)

Removed death weapon

Interplanetary Fighter (Phoenix)

Splash Damage set to 25

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Removed death weapon

Missile Bomber (Hornet)

Removed death weapon

Commander

Anti-Air Splash Damage set to 25

Anti-Air Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Missile Vehicle (Spinner)

Splash Damage set to 20

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Missile Turret (Galata)

Splash Damage set to 20

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Frigate (Narwhal)

Splash Damage set to 20

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Ammo Velocity decreased to 85.0 from 150.0

Destroyer (Orca)

Ammo Velocity decreased to 85.0 from 150.0

Battleship (Leviathan)

Ammo Velocity decreased to 110.0 from 150.0

Missile Ship (Stingray)

Splash Damage set to 25

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Grenadier

Now prioritizes turrets and commanders over its normal targeting priorities

Firing arc and effects adjustments

Added a small explosion when ammo hits to better communicate its small amount of splash damage

Ammo Gravity Scalar increased to 6 from 3

Max Firing Velocity increased to 88 from 68

Min Firing Velocity increased to 85 from 65

Added a small explosion when ammo hits to better communicate its small amount of splash damage

Anti-Nuke

Accuracy improvement

Ammo Velocity increased to 1500.0 from 500.0

Unit Cannon

Fix Unit Cannon not decaying if you stop building it

Atrophy Rate set to 140

Atrophy Cool Down set to 15

Bot Factory

Placement Size changed to [40,55] from [30,55]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 10

Vehicle Factory

Placement Size changed to [40,55] from [30,55]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 10

Naval Factory

Placement Size changed to [40,50] from [20,50]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 10

Air Factory

Placement Size changed to [40,40] from [30,30]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 10

Advanced Bot Factory

Placement Size changed to [60,80] from [50,80]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 7

Advanced Vehicle Factory

Placement Size changed to [60,80] from [50,80]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 6

Advanced Naval Factory

Area Build Separation decreased to 5 from 10

Advanced Air Factory

Placement Size changed to [60,60] from [50,50]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 7

AI

Added a new AI difficulty named ‘idle’. This AI will never take any action

Normal AI adjusted to make it more passive while making its expansion and base building behavior less erratic

AI will take into account allied forces when calculating planet wide threat

Added stuck detection for AI area build task

Adjusted stuck AI stuck detection sensitivity

Reduced AI factory buffer size

AI will send more units at once through a teleporter from planets it has full control of

AI will expand faster on planets it has full control of

Adjusted how the AI sees armies occupying a planet

AI will do a better job of balancing its economy

AI can now use bomb bots

AI can now build and use the Unit Cannon

AI should try to get all of its units cannons in sync

AI will once again send orbital radars to other planets

AI will send fabbers with no build task back to a rally point, out of harms way

AI should do a better job of not sending fabbers half way around the planet right after dropping them off at a planet

AI will now enqueue orders on the sim rather than issuing them directly

AI will build more AA vehicles if it is losing the air battle

AI will build a deep space radar earlier when on a planet by itself

AI will build an orbital launcher earlier when on a planet by itself

AI will be more likely to place a teleporter on a planet, in anticipation of needing it later

AI will keep a group of fighters and bombers at the ready when on a planet by itself

AI will build at least one air factory when on a planet by itself

Improved the AI’s handling of Gas Giants

Added “unable_to_expand_delay” as an AI personality setting. The AI will now accumulate time that it is unable to expand. Once they delay has been reached, it will set the unable to expand flag, allowing the AI to react accordingly

Minor balance to get the AI building the Delta V Engine and Control Module again

Fix for bug preventing the AI from using Delta V Engines

Fix for the PlanetHasUseableWeapon build condition not working as expected

The CanAffordBuildDemand build condition now supports build items with no spec to build. This will now just evaluate the condition using the fabber’s build arm drain

Added new AI build conditions:

CurrentEnergyEfficiency

CurrentMetalEfficiency

SpawnablePlanetCount

PlanetIsMainEcoBase

DistFromNearestEnemyThreat

PlanetHighestEnemyArmyThreat

FocusTargetThreatRatio

PlanetHighestEnemyArmyThreatRatio

PlanetIsGasGiant

Fix for AI not expanding on planets with little to no metal

Fix for typo in AI fabber air builds

Fixes for cases where the AI would seem to lose track of a fabber

Fix where the AI would get stuck on mixed terrain planets

AI platoon templates and unit map are now located in a separate folder in the AI content folder

The AI can now load multiple platoon template and unit map files

Added a cheaper path fixup function to nav. AI now makes use of the cheaper path fixup function

AI no longer ticks platoons that are in celestial transit

AI will not tick platoons in transit via the unit cannon

AI now can now create unit threat data on demand. This helps support units that are not included in unit_list.json

Removed unnecessary AI build item

Fix for some AI planet counting stuff

Updated default personality values

Build item renames

Fix the AllMetalSpotsFull build condition

Armory

Added two new Commanders

ToddFather

TheFlax

Save/Load

Changed the way local GW saves are named to avoid filename issues

Systems

Added two new large-scale prototype maps and put up a new iteration of one of the 1v1 prototypes in addition to 3 other prototype maps

Set the default water depth for planets to 100%. This only affects Galactic War and will only affect new wars

UI

Changing your primary color will no longer reset your secondary color

The lobby will remember the last AI difficulty you selected and will use that level by default

Removed Twitch integration as Twitch is no longer supporting it. Customers can still use a third party application, like OBS, to stream PA to Twitch

The system display widget will no longer show the missing image symbol when you rapidly change the system in the game lobby.

Bugfix/Polish

A small update in the public test environment this time. The Air AOE explosion on death is gone, so keep an eye out for bomber snipes. The primary focus of this update though is on three new maps which have been added, so give them a try and leave your feedback in the thread.

We’re getting awfully close to that mid-March release, but before then another PTE has been released following on from PTE 79020. Features of this patch include another nerf to radar, further nerfs to walls with increased costs and removal from the Combat Fabber, and a major buff to Grenadiers. Even more importantly, a huge update to the default systems with all the existing systems updated and new ones added for ranked mode!

Did you watch the League of Commanderstournament, fall in love with the maps and decide you needed them in your life? Well here they are. And if you didn’t think that, you were wrong, so download them anyway.

If you really liked the maps that Team Genesis made for the PA Stats 1v1 matchmaking system, and miss them since they disappeared with the last patch, well worry no longer! Our very own Captain Conundrum has taken the backup copies and introduced them into the System Sharing mod through an offline pack.

Hey guys, today is a big day! Team Genesis has been eager for some time now to share our latest set of competitive maps balanced for 1v1. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing, so we apologise for not being able to get them out to you any earlier. We know you’ve been putting up with the old unbalanced ladder maps for far too long!

Today we finally reached a point where we were happy enough with the quality of the maps to push the button. This update features a new 900 radius planet, larger than anything we’ve previously been comfortable to say was suitable for 1v1. So have a play on it and leave your feedback! This will be the last update to the 1v1 map pool – detailed changelog and map information below.

While the pa stats ladder will become unsupported in a few weeks due to Uber’s official ladders coming online, we’re still going to be working hard to support future community or exodus tournament events so your feedback still matters. If you feel we are missing certain important aspects of PA gameplay in our map sets, or if you think we could have done something better etc. we would love to hear what, why, and how.

Also want to leave a big thanks to Cola_Colin for creating PA Stats online and supporting the ladder for as long as he has. I doubt the competitive community would be anywhere as large or established if not because of him.

20/10/2014 – Pa Stats Ladder Map Changelog

Tug of war pathing issues fixed. Both edge spawn options have been changed to now have secondary paths around their respective lava ponds to minimise the effectiveness of contains from the middle spawns

Tug of War

Description: One straight landmass surrounded by lava. Two edge spawns and two middle spawns. Simple and straightforward to understand, with some opportunities to sneak around and flank your opponent from behind.

Station 3

Description: 3 land spawns and one naval spawn make for different gameplay each time. Land spawns operate in a triangle, with some secondary routes between spawns. You could also send special forces dox around through the water to attack from behind your opponents base.

Capital N

Description: Because the spawns are on opposite sides of the equator, this map tends to feel much larger than it actually is. Capital N plays slower and much more macro paced than your standard moon. Also has alot of interesting movement options and bridge chokepoints.

Spawn Count: 2

Faceoff

Description: This is the multi-planet spawn orbital version of Capital N. As per popular request, you can annihilaser race, compete for the 3rd halleyable moon to destroy your opponents laser controls, or just plain out invade from orbit and ignore the super weapons altogether.

Spawn Count: 2, 2, 0

Caledonia

Description: Earthlike planet with a lot of water and water metal. Some interesting land movement options as well if you want to ignore all that. All spawns are vulnerable to naval bombardment to some degree however.

Dust of Doom

taxman 2v2

Tug of War

Cross Back

Water World

Dustbowl

Honeypot

Station 3

Clarke

Systeem X

Capital N

Faceoff

You’ve got moons, lava, desert, tropical, metal, all in single planet and multi-planet configurations, all carefully tested to ensure fair metal distribution and spawns. It’s a stunning achievement derived from the team’s hard work. You’ll find them all listed in the PA Stats 1vs1 Systems tab when loading a system.